Inglourious Basterds was Quentin Tarantino's sixth film and featured a special cameo appearance by comedy icon Mike Myers; here's the character he played, explained. Inglourious Basterds revolves around a squad of Jewish-American soldiers - known as the Basterds - deep behind enemy lines at the height of World War II, and on a mission to obtain as many "Nazi scalps" as possible.
Inglourious Basterds was released in 2009 to stellar reviews and a healthy box-office haul to the tune of $321 million worldwide. Tarantino attracted a variety of top performers to his cast, including Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender and a breakout role for Christoph Waltz as the despicable Colonel Hans Landa. Fassbender's character in the film Lt. Archie Hicox is quite short-lived as he only appears in three scenes.
Recruited by Winston Churchill himself, former film critic Hicox is sent deep behind enemy lines to pose as a German and make contact with both the Basterds and German film star/Allied spy Bridget von Hammersmark. Before he undergoes his mission, which ends in a bloody Mexican shootout and one of the best setpieces in Inglourious Basterds, he obtains his briefing from Mike Myers' General Fenech.
Inglourious Basterds found Mike Myers under some old-age make-up in the role of General Ed Fenech. Giving Hicox his marching orders for 'Operation Kino' - whilst Winston Churchill sits ominously in the corner - Fenech is a posh, whiskey-swilling career General with an array of medals adorning his chest. Myers' spouts such brilliant Tarantino-written lines as "...we have all our rotten eggs in one basket. The objective of Operation Kino: blow up the basket" with the kind of scenery-chewing effect that fans have come to expect from the comedian.
Mike Myers' character is named for Italian scream queen Edwige Fenech, who ultimately quit acting in 2015. In 2007 she made an appearance in Eli Roth's Hostel: Part II and Roth - a friend of Tarantino's - appears in Inglourious Basterds as Donny Donowitz, AKA the 'Bear Jew'. General Ed Fenech is also based on George Sanders, a classic British film actor who was perhaps most well-known for 1945's The Picture of Dorian Gray. The stiff upper lip and scenery-chewing is a nod to Sanders.
Sadly Mike Myers only appears for one small scene in Inglourious Basterds; a pleasant surprise, given that no one would ever expect Quentin Tarantino to cast Myers - the voice of Shrek - in one of his movies. Myers has since repeated the heavily made-over cameo, appearing in Queen-biopic Bohemian Rhapsody in 2018.